The past 12 months had more great music going on than any year in recent memory. Some of the most innovative artists of the last decade — Kanye West, Daft Punk, Queens of the Stone Age, Vampire Weekend and Arcade Fire — all made watershed albums. Rock & roll greats like John Fogerty, Paul McCartney and David Bowie proved they could be as vital as ever. The EDM explosion kept blowing up thanks to artists like Disclosure and Avicii; old-school titans like Eminem and Pusha T pushed hip-hop forward alongside new-school innovators like Chance the Rapper, Earl Sweatshirt, J. Cole and Danny Brown; Kacey Musgraves and Ashley Monroe made country that was traditional and iconoclastic. But the most exciting news of the year might've been the astonishing number of breakout new artists, from retro-Eighties sister act Haim, to Brit-folk prodigy Jake Bugg, to indie-rockers Parquet Courts, to post-punkers Savages to chart-topping 17-year-old truth-bomber Lorde. Even Miley Cyrus' wrecking ball of an adult-oriented breakout album was kinda awesome. Oh 2013, you gave so much and asked so little; 2014, get crackin'. You've got a lot to live up to.

Beck, ‘Song Reader’

There's old-school, and then there's "Man, it would rule if someone would invent electricity" old-school. Beck's "album" of sheet music turned out to be a sly collection of folky swing tunes, steeped in Beck's absurdist wit. One ukulele ballad, "Old Shanghai," even became a YouTube hit.

The Flaming Lips, ‘The Terror’

The Lips return to the apocalyptic acid punk of their Eighties albums, with monkish meditation, darkening-plains rumble and scouring electronics. It's what happens when psych heroes find the hard-won honesty in whoa-dude revelation.

Fuck Buttons, ‘Slow Focus’

This duo's third set of psychedelic electronic rock gets pretty dark, but its wordless tension-and-release journeys are no less majestic. It's filled with tsunamis of corroded synthesizer noise and industrial beats — like the soundtrack to a dystopian sci-fi movie, or real life in 2013.

M.I.A., ‘Matangi’

Once again, the avant-R&B rebel proved the raw power of her global-cauldron dance beats and hater-blasting lyrics. Matangi takes on her bird-flipping 2012 Super Bowl scandal and even has a tender lover's jam in "Come Walk With Me," finding revelation by living out contradiction.

Valerie June, ‘Pushin’ Against a Stone’

This New York-via-Tennessee singer mixed blues, soul, country, string-band folk and gospel while the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach added old-school ambience. It's the sound of a rookie doing her own thing like no retro-soul singer since Amy Winehouse.

Savages, ‘Silence Yourself’

"I'm cold and I'm cold and I'm cold and I'm stubborn," Savages' Jehnny Beth informs us on the band's debut. With the repetitive insistence of a howitzer and the urgency of an air-raid siren, these four women made some of 2013's scariest, most thrilling noise, finding new worlds of terror and stress in Eighties U.K. post-punk.

Earl Sweatshirt, ‘Doris’

Odd Future's brightest cult star lives up to his reputation as an unholy verbal wizard on his long-awaited debut album. He also upends it — pushing past the amoral bomb-lobbing that won him notoriety with a newly introspective style, perfectly suited to third-eye-opening beats courtesy of Pharrell, RZA and Earl himself.

J. Cole, ‘Born Sinner’

Releasing your major-label rap record the same day as Kanye took balls. So did staying true to hip-hop's vaunted edutaining tradition with a set of hypersmart, excellently self-produced tracks that recall, well, vintage Kanye in their ability to dramatize the tension between Hov-size career ambition and post-Pac truth saying.

Pearl Jam, ‘Lightning Bolt’

Pearl Jam's 10th album is a brooding, pissed-off set — great news for fans. Lots of Lightning Bolt's best moments are downtempo, including "Sirens," their own haunted take on the PJ-inspired power-ballad subgenre. But let's be clear: The killer punk-metal rant "Mind Your Manners" should be played extremely loud.

Keith Urban, ‘Fuse’

The amiable country dude's latest is called Fuse for a reason — only Taylor Swift has done so well synergizing dance-pop drive and countrypolitan pump. Urban yokes Eighties guitar flash and Euro beats to tight-crafted Nashville songs about cars and girls and girls in cars — classic images given a fresh polish.

Kurt Vile, ‘Wakin on a Pretty Daze’

The fifth LP from the resplendently mellow Vile is a beautiful sinkhole of meditative guitar mysticism. The meandering tunes roll along on craggy, ambling licks and the wisdom gleaned from whiling away his days in a "shame chamber" — quite contentedly, it would seem, judging by how pretty these songs are.

The So So Glos, ‘Blowout’

The So So Glos are Brooklyn kids — the kind who actually grew up there, a band of brothers brimming with boyish energy and burn-down-the-house exuberance. Even when the songs on their third album are full of darkness and doubt, they jump to the pogo-punk style of Rancid or Green Day, but with a Clash-style sense of mission.

Waxahatchee, ‘Cerulean Salt’

In a year of great Nineties-indebted, female-fronted indie-rock albums (see also: Swearin', Speedy Ortiz), Katie Crutchfield's stood out. It's full of rubbed-raw heart-to-hearts about hanging with other miserable young people, waiting for the fun part to begin, and starting to get the suspicion this might be the fun part.

Best Coast, ‘Fade Away EP’

It's just seven songs but still felt like a breakthrough, mixing the noise-pop buzz of Best Coast's 2011 debut with the swarming melodies and emotional payoff of last year's The Only Place. It's where Bethany Cosentino's love of Patsy Cline meets her love of My Bloody Valentine, and it suggests she's growing as a songwriter by the month.

Neko Case, ‘The Worse Things Get, the Harder I Fight, the Harder I Fight, the More I Love You’

The country-rock firecracker's sixth LP is full of bold arrangements and hot guitars (courtesy of My Morning Jacket, among others). It's also a tour de force of intense, big-chorused songwriting. In other words, plenty more than just a big voice. But, damn: That's one knee-bucklingly magnificent voice.

Pusha T, ‘My Name Is My Name’

The cockier half of the Clipse didn't choose to go solo — he had to after his brother found God. Pusha, in turn, found Kanye West, whose stark and twisted production helped make My Name Is My Name feel like a more lyrically focused companion piece to his own Yeezus. It's the year's sharpest hit of street philosophy.

Chvrches, ‘The Bones of What You Believe’

On their debut, this Glasgow trio made indie-weaned synth-rock that hit with as much big-box thwump as Rihanna or "Roar." Singer Lauren Mayberry throws herself into stalker-pop come-ons, and nearly every song is bright and cutting and almost scarily impassioned.

Haim, ‘Days Are Gone’

On their debut, these three harmonizing Los Angeles sisters found an elusive art-pop sweet spot between TLC and Kate Bush — and won over indie kids and teenyboppers alike. "The Wire" plays like a great lost Eighties radio hit. But "My Song 5," with its broken beats and snaky flow, is the hook-mad high point.

Tegan & Sara, ‘Heartthrob’

After a decade-plus making smart folk pop, this duo of Canadian twins took a leap into radio-hungry dance beats. Their songwriting stayed sharp and revealing as ever, and on "Closer," they show up all the billion-dollar divas with a disco burner about "how to get you underneath me" that is one of the year's sweatiest singles.

Bombino, ‘Nomad’

For this raw cross-cultural jam, Omara "Bombino" Moctar — a hot-shit guitarist from Niger — hooked up with Black Key Dan Auerbach, who produced the LP with a crate-digging R&B/psych vibe. It's full of hypnotic fuzz, and the cosmic country of "Tamiditine" conjures Workingman's Dead – if it'd been made in the Sahara desert.

Miley Cyrus, ‘Bangerz’

Amid all the foam-finger hub-bub, Miley made an excellent pop record. Bangerz is full of country-flavored slow jams and dirty beats like "Do My Thang" and the ace Future duet "My Darlin'." She drops top-shelf electro hooks and navigates coming-of-age conundrums, bringing depth and vulnerability to one hell of a party.

Chance The Rapper, ‘Acid Rap’

The second mixtape from this 20-year-old Chicago MC is the ultimate in psychedelic hip-hop. Chance spins Lil Wayne-meets-Hendrix language swirls punctuated by the real-life observations of a kid who grew up in a world where "it's dark a lot . . . easier to find a gun than it is to find a fucking parking spot."

Eminem, ‘Marshall Mathers LP 2’

On the sequel to his 2000 masterpiece, Eminem taps the maniac genius who first scared America into submission — Stan's little brother even came back to murder Mr. Mathers. But on "Headlights" he made peace with his estranged mom in what's gotta be Slim Shady's huggiest moment ever.

My Bloody Valentine, ‘MBV’

It's the noise-rock Chinese Democracy — 22 years in the making and utterly throttling just the same. MBV's third LP echoed their landmark Loveless with new shapes and colors, but the same deceptive tunefulness. And "Nothing Is" is nothing less than the art-rock equivalent of crazy-strong hash.

Phoenix, ‘Bankrupt!’

The French indie-pop group didn't come through with hits on par with "1901" or "Lisztomania." Phoenix did something even cagier, rolling out sleek, savvy songs that took apart fame, fashion and coolness from the inside, without scrimping on their space-rock whoosh, surging melodies and wry New Wave pout.

Laura Marling, ‘Once I Was An Eagle’

Marling is the most compelling singer-songwriter of the U.K. roots-revival scene, with a voice that conjures young Joni Mitchell. Kicking off with a heart-surgical seven-song opening suite, her fourth LP is the record Carey Mulligan in Inside Llewyn Davis might have made after kicking Justin Timberlake to the curb.

Nine Inch Nails, ‘Hesitation Marks’

On the first Nine Inch Nails album in five years, Trent Reznor threw a dance party at the edge of oblivion. Songs like "Came Back Haunted" and "All Time Low" combine the gnarled-gear drive of vintage NIN with the ice-storm atmospherics that Reznor has brought to his recent soundtrack work.

Ashley Monroe, ‘Like A Rose’

This Knoxville girl gave us a juicy old-school honky-tonk set wrapped in pedal steel, full of characters as real as your neighbors and sung with Dolly Parton soul and sass. But when Monroe suggests ganja and whips and chains to her man on "Weed Instead of Roses," it's clear this isn't your grandma's country music.